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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/22867972">Walking Before Running</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Golbez/pseuds/Golbez'>Golbez</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Battle B-Daman</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Bilingual Character(s), Chinese Character, Developing Relationship, Emotional Hurt, Love Confessions, M/M</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-02-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-02-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-01 06:42:27</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Underage</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,274</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/22867972</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Golbez/pseuds/Golbez</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>Enjyu knows he's dancing against a delicate balance.</p><p>And Wen nudges him dangerously toward the edge.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Enjyu/Wen Yong Fa</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>2</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Walking Before Running</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Some straightforward Wenjyu with a bilingual flair born from discussions about Wen and Li speaking in Laikenese :)</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>Enjyu knows he's dancing against a delicate balance.</p><p>And Wen—</p><p>
  <i>(It isn't often they seek out each other's company actively, but tonight they sit under the moon, letting its light wash over them both. Though they all work best in the darkness, even the Shadow Alliance knows when to fall quiet and let the moon reign. Neither of them speak, neither daring to break the sacred, unspoken pact between them that dictates they are neither friends nor enemies nor lovers. They merely are, and sometimes that means they'll scream in each other's faces and play games with each other's minds and other times that means falling into bed together or moments like now, when they each are all the other has in the darkened world, but they are neither friends nor enemies nor lovers.)</i>
</p><p>—Wen nudges him dangerously toward the edge.</p><p><br/>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>Enjyu traces circles on Wen's back. They are laying together, and Enjyu does not ever care about niceties after lovemaking, but this time Wen has fallen asleep with head and hand on his torso and Enjyu's hand just <i>naturally</i> fell upon his back and...</p><p>
  <i>(The first time they meet, Wen and Li are fresh faces out of Goldo's training room, and he has been studying under Ababa for years. Ababa introduces them with a smile, and Enjyu places careful insults to assess them for reactions.</i>
</p><p><i>Shortly after, when they are making their way to the training rooms with Enjyu in the lead, he hears Li turning to his brother and telling him, "</i>哥, 他是个賤啊."</p><p><i>Wen snorts aloud and mutters, "</i>至少他帅呆, 嗯?"</p><p><i>Enjyu doesn't stop walking, as, without missing a beat or a step, he says aloud in perfect Laikenese, "</i>你对了<i>."</i></p><p>
  <i>He knows they've both stopped in their tracks, and he can feel their bewildered stares on his back. He only smirks to himself as he considers that understanding when he's being called mean or hot was not Ababa's intention in forcing language studies on him.</i>
</p><p>
  <i>The brothers keep peppering their conversations with their native tongue after that, but he notes they never dare again to talk about him when he's in earshot.)</i>
</p><p>Wen's fingers curl against his stomach, tickling him just a little, and Enjyu can feel his breath on his chest and Wen curls closer to him in his sleep and Enjyu is tracing circles and sometimes triangles on his back.</p><p>Enjyu is teetering, and it would be so easy to fall.</p><p>He refuses. So he steels his heart and roughly peels Wen off him, rolling him onto the mattress and hearing him stir. Enjyu dresses quickly, and he leaves, and he does not hear when Wen sleepily calls out his name in Laikenese.</p><p><br/>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>Enjyu makes it no secret what he wants from Wen, what he wants when they're done for the day and he rests a hand on Wen's shoulder, when they're on missions and it's just the two of them in the hotel room, when they're sitting under the stars and Enjyu nudges Wen with a foot. He makes it no secret what he wants, and what he wants, he takes.</p><p>He doesn't realize what he's done until Wen is looking up into his eyes and they're moving in sync and Wen is suddenly shouting:</p><p>"—爱你!"</p><p>And over and over, each cry piercing through Enjyu as he pretends they are just another noise and he grits his teeth and when they are done and getting dressed, he turns to Wen.</p><p>"What were you saying back there? Sounded like Laikenese."</p><p>And just as he expected, Wen turns bright red and shakes his head and tells him it was nothing, and Enjyu knows now that Wen has already gone over the edge, has already tipped over the balancing act between them. Enjyu does not care to follow him there. He'll keep on taking what he wants because nothing has changed. They are still not—</p><p>
  <i>(If Wen is a little more guarded and careful in his words around him after that, that suits him just fine.)</i>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>He gazes down at Wen, and there is a knife in his heart. It is twisting with each shot Wen takes that raises him another two levels. Everything seems small compared to that twisting knife, to the <i>feelings</i> that Wen dares to force into him.</p><p>Enjyu knows he's dancing against a delicate balance.</p><p>But it's already broken, he thinks. It's already broken because Wen is a fool who didn't know how to sit and stay on the edge of that balance, who didn't realize that to utter the words <i>I love you</i> was to doom him and Enjyu both.</p><p>Enjyu gazes down at Wen, and the knife is twisting deeper and deeper into him, and he is staring at a precipice before him, a ledge that beckons to him because now, now Wen has given him no choice but to turn around and dive in the opposite direction from him.</p><p>Enjyu takes the plunge, and fires down at Wen.</p><p>
  <i>(And later Yamato and Wen are standing there together and declaring war on him, and Enjyu meets Wen's accusatory eyes and he calls upon all the wrath and fire that makes up his core and he tries not to think instead about how it hurts it hurts it hurts—)</i>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>They sit together overlookng Cowtoon, and there is a carefully calculated distance between them, because the end of the Shadow Alliance had meant the end of who they had been, and the end of Marda-B meant the beginning of who they would be for the rest of their lives.</p><p>"I'm—" starts Enjyu, and his heart leaps into his throat. This had been easier when he was saying it to Li, when he'd needed to plead for his help. Wen...is different.</p><p>Wen doesn't look at him, only sighs. They had effortlessly, wordlessly, set aside everything between them for the sake of the world, but now Enjyu can see the weight of their broken bond on him, can feel the weight on his own shoulders.</p><p>They sit together and look out at Cowtoon, and neither of them dare to speak, because the silence that settles on them is the only remaining unbroken thing between them.</p><p><br/>
</p><p><br/>
</p>
<p></p><div class="center">
  <p>***</p>
</div><p><br/>
</p><p><br/>
</p><p>It is a long, long time before Enjyu takes him back to that ledge overlooking Cowtoon and he grips Wen's hand this time and tells him, "I'm sorry."</p><p>Wen looks up at him, and the years have not changed the softening of his gaze as his lips part in surprise. Nor have they changed the way they quirk into a smile and then he's laughing and he says, "笨蛋."</p><p>Enjyu is still blinking at him in surprise when Wen squeezes his hand and stands on the tips of his toes and gently presses a kiss to his lips.</p><p>And Enjyu has a feeling it'll take another long, long time before everything that went unspoken between them is mended, but that's—okay, maybe.</p><p>"我也爱你," he blurts out, because something in him tells him it's only right to answer in the language Wen originally said it.</p><p>Wen doesn't laugh this time. He just smiles and holds Enjyu's hand and says, "That's got to be a record for longest time before getting an answer ever."</p><p>"Maybe," says Enjyu, and he's certain things won't quite be the same just yet, not yet, but this time—this time they won't have edges to walk along carefully. This time there'll be room for them both and they won't have to be afraid to stumble and fall because—because this time, they'll walk together, side by side.</p>
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